Political commentary from the LA Times

As the holiday season unfolds, our thoughts on The Ticket turn to
working not quite so hard for a few days. So we are re-publishing some
of our favorite or most-read items from 2009. This item originally appeared on Jan. 12.

Usually it's pop culture rubbing off on politics.

But Sunday night, it sounded like the other %#$&+* way around.

As our LATimes.com colleagues Rachel Abramovitz and Tom O'Neil note elsewhere on this site and elsewhere here,
this year's Golden Globe Awards by the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.
had acceptance speeches that were full of words like $%&*(=^ and
f!$*&-+. Also, "balls," "suck" and "suck it." So if you were among
a majority of Americans who didn't watch it, you might not have missed
anything.

Apparently, some were surprised by the profanity production of the elite liberal culture crowd.

But clearly the actors have been studying Illinois Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was caught on FBI wiretaps and not quoted publicly by that bleeping federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.
This was after Blago's December arrest for, among other things,
allegedly auctioning off his "<<&*%$# golden" nomination to
fill the vacant Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama, who'll be inaugurated in just 8 days.

According to Fitzgerald, the 51-year-old Democrat said things like /;#$@% and )&%^$# and also &%$!@#.

Blagojevich denies any criminal wrongdoing.

On Sunday night, actor Mickey Rourke particularly liked the word "balls," which is only crude and something a lot of politicians such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid think Blagojevich has in the XXL size. Rourke said "balls" several times on television.

But, reports reported, he said it in an admiring Hollywood kind of
way, like sweaty pro athletes in their locker room talk about a
particularly good player when they know they're not on television.

Mickey even teased director Darren Aronofsky about being
smart, which prompted his friend on-camera to shoot him the finger as
in &% $#*)=! You had to be there. But it was apparently pretty
%%$#*- funny to the Hollywood crowd.

And in case any angry online detractors of actors and actresses ever
wonder late at night in their Wisconsin basements if their famous
targets actually ever read the derogatory comments online, pretend-vice
presidential candidate Tina Fey
answered that one in a most satisfying way for bloggers/commenters. She
cautioned her audience of fellow famous people against feeling too good
about themselves.

"They have this thing called the Internet," she informed the
expensively-attired crowd. "And you can find a lot of people there who
don't like you. I'd like to address some of them now. BabsonLaCrosse, you can suck it! DianeFan you can suck it! Cougar Letter, you can really suck it!"